Governance
This Social Media Meltdown Is a Modern Cautionary Tale
social media meltdown / shutterstock
It’s easy to read about best practices, nod your head in agreement, and then move on. But the fine folks Amy’s Baking Company are in the middle of writing a modern cautionary tale that shows just how important keeping control of your social self really is.[read more]
Online Platforms for Social Change: A Paradigm Shift in Government
After the Prime Minister announced that DisabilityCare, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), would be partially funded through an increase of 0.5% in the Medicare levy, the CEO of Myer, Bernie Brookes, was reported to have told a Macquarie Investment seminar that the levy was a bad idea.[read more]
Legal Concerns: Your Facebook Account as Evidence in a Lawsuit
Social media as court evidence? You have a legal duty to preserve it. From attorney Emily Huters, "If you are involved in litigation where social media evidence within your control may be relevant, don’t delete the data or deactivate the account, which could lead to deletion."[read more]
Monitoring Public Information is Not a Violation of Privacy
Monitoring public information on the internet is not a violation of privacy. Much ado has been made about colleges that follow their athletes on social media. Time for sanity in the discussion. As of this writing, there are 35 states considering some form of digital privacy bills making it illegal to ask for social media passwords and usernames for purposes of gaining private information.[read more]
Social Media and Financial Services: Regulatory Update
With new US and UK regulatory guidance, social media and financial services are firmly linked. Here's an updated guide to managing social media engagement for the financial services industry.[read more]
Questions and Answers with the FTC on the New COPPA Rule
Questions and answers with the FTC about changes to the COPPA rule, from the recent Children's Advertising & Online Privacy Conference 2013. The chat was hosted by Liisa Thomas (Partner, Winston & Strawn LLP), with FTC representative Mamie Kresses joining via Skype. The pair discussed many of the upcoming changes to COPPA that consumers, businesses and child safety advocates need to know about in order to comply with the changing law.[read more]
SEC Approves Social Media for Information Dissemination
This week has seen new regulatory changes that affect how information pertinent to security values may be shared in the social media channel. It's very important for social media managers and advisers who work within the industry to understand the reach and impact relevant to dissemination of financial information.[read more]
CEOs and Social Media: How to Make a Case for Investment
CEOs and social media/shutterstock
CEOs at many Global 2000 and mid-market companies view content marketing, social media and sales enablement through a dated lens. Why is the top corporate brass such laggards when it comes to social media? And how can corporate marketers make them see the light?[read more]
Social Strategy Is Out; Social Media Philosophy Is In
Brands are beginning to understand the implications of social media beyond the marketing function it often serves. When the shift in mindset from marketing strategy to organizational change takes place, many brands do not know how or where to start.[read more]
The Legal Pitfalls of Using Photos on Social Media in the UK
Do you know how to stay the right side of the law when using photos on social media in the UK? This essential guide to the legal pitfalls of image copyright online by Rachel Boothroyd, legal counsel for eModeration.[read more]
Follow Ethical SEO Trends In 2013
Today, SEOs concentrate more on quality and freshness. Honestly, transparency and ethics have less to do with Google and more to do with a company’s reputation, ROI, and endurance.[read more]
Social Media and eCommerce: Learn a Lesson from Skyfall
In the digital world, more people are buying things online to save time and, sometimes, to save money. Typically, social media and ecommerce are separate when it comes to online shopping. A business offering their goods to an online market would use social networks like Facebook to promote their brand, products, and sales and link it...[read more]
The Cultural Innovator: The Tipping Point for Business as We Know It
We have reached a point now where the 'obvious' future of established brands, businesses and infrastructures are no longer assured, simply by protocol and acceptance of 'the only option' or 'the way it has always been.' The era of the 'cultural innovator' is upon us. What are you doing about it?[read more]
Secretary Hillary Clinton’s IP Video Chat and the Future of Social Media
Outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton participated in her final “Global Town Hall” video talk yesterday.Throughout the talk, Secretary Clinton took questions through Facebook, Twitter, Sina Weibo (the Chinese version of Twitter), emails, and IP Video Conferencing, a form of Internet phone technology, which allowed the Secretary to see the students as she heard and answered their questions in real time.[read more]
How Trolls Wreak Havoc For Users and Site Owners
Recently, we have seen that abusive user actions have caused major pains for online communities and brands. Here's the scoop on some of the most infamous trolling.[read more]
Should Companies Block Access to Digital Tools?
Yes, still today in 2013, and despite the huge impact of social technologies in our society, there are businesses out there that seem to be rather happy with shooting themselves in their feet. Isn’t it time that we finally, at long last, wake up and embrace the inevitable? Social Networking is here to stay and for a long while even.[read more]
Social Business in 2013 – A Commitment
Yes, the buzz is there, the hype, too! The selling and marketing of it, but when you are talking about making a commitment, that is, raising the stakes to provoke that profound business transformation we all know it’s fully capable of (about how to make it work), it’s nowhere to be seen. And that’s worrying. Very worrying[read more]
Instagram and the Classic Non-Apology
Over the last few days, Instagram catapulted themselves to the top of the worst PR mistakes of 2012. Like a movie that comes out right before the Oscars, they are now top of mind with the bloggers and reporters that write about the worst PR mistakes of the year. Happy new year, Instagram.[read more]
Tweeting from the C-Suite: How Executives Can Stay Out of Trouble on Social Media
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings posted a seemingly innocuous message on his Facebook page, but his post caught the eye of regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission, who determined that the CEO had violated Regulation Fair Disclosure, a rule that requires public companies to share material information with all investors. What can C-level executives learn from the situation? Plenty.[read more]
“Empowering Employees Through Values” – CEOs in IBM study
CEOs need some degree of control – to enforce regulatory compliance, drive standardization and avoid waste, but beyond that CEO’s believe a trend toward openness brings the best business results. In fact, more open organizations were characterized by higher performance.[read more]

About Social Media Today






















“I think the interesting thing to note here is that mastering social media is not the same as mastering social media marketing. 10,000 hours on social media will not necessarily make you a master in marketing via social media, yet getting the training and experience necessary to become an expert at the marketing aspect is difficult because there is no one out there really teaching it.”
“I think Mayer is actually doing a great job of injecting Yahoo back into the conversation by making it a "hot topic" again. Full disclosure, I've always liked Yahoo but any property that's been around for that long has to fight against the perception that it's outdated, lest it be resigned to the dustbin of history like AOL.”